Constance sat down beside me, as I rubbed her shoulders. Awaiting for Ms. Esther and Ms. Erika to enter the cafeteria. I leaned over kissing her forehead more than once, feeling relieved to be around her again. I didn't feel weak for apologizing or loving hard on my girl because I feel like she really knows so much about me and I keep letting her in.
Finally, they entered the cafeteria holding balloons and celebration whistles while Ms. Esther also had the cart of breakfast.
"Why all the long faces? We've met our goal for the fundraiser!" Ms. Erika announced. "I'm really proud of you all for doing something for the camp and saving it. I've known you for two months but I love y'all seriously. Y'all are a good group of kids, no young-adults showing that you are capable of standing up for something that you love and enjoy! There's big things going to happen with this camp, all thanks you guys and—."
"Our reward is the skating ring party," Ms. Esther added. "Not only for you meet the goal but there's a lot of children that signed up to join the camp. I'm so happy and proud of you all. I knew that this was going to be wonderful. I made pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, and hash browns. Hope you like with the drinks being orange juice or HI-C."
I appreciated food, especially a big breakfast that Ms. Esther was giving us.
"Later on we'll be going skating, and I'm buying all of y'all wristbands." Ms. Erika stated, giving us time to cheer. "So I hope you enjoy your breakfast, and I'll leave you with this question to think about, Are you afraid of being your true self around others, why?"
The question touched deeply on everyone in the cafeteria as the entire room was quiet and possibly in their thoughts. I was definitely thinking about it as well and the way Ms. Erika glared at all of us she knew that she had us which led her to leaving the cafeteria altogether.
Ms. Esther smiled at us, "I'm about to pass out the food, how do y'all feel about the question?"
"She always seems to get us in our thoughts," Jacqueline spoke, giving her opinion. "I do think we tend to hold back from being our true self from others, probably scared of the thoughts and opinions people think of us or just being scared of trusting one another."
"I agree, we're never going to give a person all of us," Braylon confessed. "Sometimes we give people the best version of ourselves and leave out the rest of what completes us as individuals."
Ms. Esther passed out the food, patting Braylon's back.
"A very good answer to the question. You've all grown so much from the past summers I've spent with you all," She said. "We have one month left together, and I want you all to know especially to the newbies. You are all good children with plenty of room to continue growing and progressing as better people as adults. I also would like to include, just because you have no clue on what to do after you leave camp or as an adult you're not alone or by yourself. Sometimes we find ourselves more as we grow and other times we're stuck, but it's okay. You are in a journey of growing and moving forward as young-adults. Don't rush, everything in life happens for a reason."
With that last comment, she left the cafeteria and for us to talk amongst one another.
"We going skating?" Lamont asked, looking at all of us. "Man, it's been a while since I've done it."
"Right, I'm warning y'all now.. I can't skate!" Bianca confessed.
"It's not that hard, but I'll teach you." Dante offered, giving her a wink.
Tatiana rolled her eyes, yet didn't say anything about it.
I ate my food, taking my attention off of them and onto the question again. It wasn't often enough for me to think heavily on a inspirational question that Ms. Erika had for us but it led me to thinking if I gave Constance the true version of myself.
I had to though if I already cried, spoke about things with her I didn't tell anyone else about and just enjoyed being around her.
By the way she grabbed my face and kissed my lips, the people in the cafeteria whooped and cheered us on as I pulled back, raising my brow.
It sealed the deal.
. . .
We were now on our way to the roller skating rink, Cascade Family Skating and I sat in the seat with Constance, wrapping my arms around her.
"You think you got me in check or something?" I asked her, rubbing her shoulders.
"No," She batted her eyelashes. "I love that you're not afraid of showcasing your love and passion for me, as I'd like to be the same person for you – you're so comfortable with me and for that I want you to know that you're very important to me and a big part of my journey."
"Oh, well I do have a lot of respect for you." I admitted. "You definitely helped me get very comfortable.. I love you girl, and I'll try my hardest to make you happy."
She smiled, as we were finally in the parking lot of the skate joint. As Ms. Esther drove seven of us here, Ms. Erika took the other seven and we all met up together at the rink.
I allowed the people to go in the line first before allowing Constance to get in front of me and we exited off of the van and outside of the building.
Everyone was outside, just waiting to hear from the leaders.
"We're paying for all of y'all to skate, and eat.. but if you don't want to skate, let us know." Ms. Erika advised.
Since nobody went in the middle, we were all going to skate and then we entered the doors to the skate rink.
Before we even got inside of it, we had to get wristbands and then we were allowed to enter it fully. Constance followed me along with Eugene and Jacqueline to get the sizes of our shoes as the others decided to walk around first.
"Sizes?" The person behind the counter asked us.
"Five." Constance answered.
"A five or four and the half for me," Jacqueline told him.
"A size twelve." I stated.
"Ten for me." Eugene confirmed.
The guy grabbed the skates for the girls, and they walked towards the opening where the floor was. He then handed us our skates and we searched for the girls that were sitting on the bench and putting on their skates.
I sat next to Constance as she tied her laces on her shoes, before looking over at me. "I know I'm about to struggle on the floor."
"This about to be a workout for me, I just know that my legs gon' be super sore after all of this." Jacqueline sighed, combing her hair with her fingers.
"It might not be bad as y'all are thinking." Eugene asserted, "You might fall though and I'm going to admit, I'll laugh but help you at the same time."
Jacqueline mugged him, getting up from the bench. "Eugene, hold my hand please."
Eugene tied his skates, and helped her onto the floor. Jacqueline was struggling a lot on the floor, as he tried holding her up to keep her from falling and they both ended up falling which made Braylon and Dante burst into laughter.
"You ready?" I finished tying my shoes, extending my hand for her to grab on to.
She placed her hands in mine, as we got on the floor and she squeezed my arm tightly as I chuckled. "Don't move so much, baby."
"I got you, I'm going to stay with you until it becomes natural again," I guided her around the floor, watching her legs moving quickly and I felt her soon getting the hang of it so I let her go. "You got it, baby girl. Get low, with your knees bent, and hands low or in front of you."
The corners of my mouth turned up, as she was starting to move regularly and that's when I took off away from her.
I don't remember the last time I went skating but it was something that never left me, as I was good at skating forwards and backwards.
The minute Constance caught up to me, I skated away making her smack her teeth and laugh trying to get closer to me.
"Stop going so fast, I'm still not that confident in these skates Darius." She quickly grabbed my shirt, and got in front of me to get me to stop taking off. "Let's skate together."
"Alright." I kissed her lips, making her cheeks turn pink and I held her hands as we started skating. "I see you not falling, I'm proud of you."
She giggled, agreeing that she was happy with herself for not falling. "I'm doing good so far!"
I turned around in my skates, seeing Lamont in his skates and moving quick around the floor. He noticed us and made a smooth turn, heading over to us. "Man, I wished I had some roller blades that's right up my alley."
"They don't have no roller blades here?" My eyes narrowed.
"I didn't ask," He shrugged, before pointing towards Dahlia. "She scared to get on the floor so she skating around the carpet."
"Go help her." Constance suggested.
"I tried Con, she don't want to get on the floor." The corner of his mouth lifted up into a playful smirk. "Yo, y'all want to race?"
"I'm not that good right now, y'all could go." Constance pouted, giving me a reassuring smile. "I'm going to talk to Dahlia, have fun."
I gave her one last look before moving quickly, to race with Lamont. I swiftly skated past a lot of people, as Lamont was right there until I moved quickly, using my track-star feet and dusted him in the race.
Lamont dapped me up after the race, "I forgot you fast on ya' feet. How's it going with Con?"
I gazed at her talking to Dahlia, before answering his question. "We good, I'm in love with her bro. Sometimes I think I feel like that'll be my downfall, falling in love too quick."
"You in love love?" He raised a brow.
I nodded.
"I don't see a problem with it," His brows drew together. "I knew that y'all were going to be together since she would stay coming over. She didn't think I knew that all those times she'd come to house was because of you but I knew that she didn't see me that way and I stopped liking her right whenever she moved back to Nola."
I thought back to the times where she'll be at the house, talking to me. At the time, I was dealing with my heartbreak from my last girlfriend in high school and she was always a good listener and a person to get advice from so I enjoyed talking to her until the camp days.
"That's funny how we got together," I simpered. "She was always around. I think that I did have a crush on her whenever she came to the house but I wasn't trying to be on any of that because I knew the kind of girl she was until she asked me to be her friends, I knew that I would eventually fall in love with her. She just has this personality where she's so open, sweet and lovable - it's what made me fall hard for her."
"Yeah, a very good and genuine person indeed." Lamont confirmed. "I love y'all together too, as I was trying to be the person to get y'all together, with the best friend mess."
"How are you and Dahlia?"
"I'm so close to asking her out to be my girlfriend," He told me. "I really like talking to her."
"Well our dad taught and showed us how to be gentlemen."
"You right, before I dust you in our second race." He held out his hands. "I want to say thank you for being my brother and caring for me, you important to me and I love you."
"I love you too," I pulled him into a hug, feeling good to have my brother back. "But I'm not letting you win dawg, brother or not."
I moved fast on my skates, skating passed a few of the crew members who stopped and watched us racing against one another. I looked behind me, seeing Lamont getting closer which led me to going faster on the skates and I was close to making it around the floor.
As I made it to the end, Lamont cut through the middle and got in front of me making everyone on the floor laugh including myself.
"I won!" He held his hands up.
"No, you cheated but it's good." I brushed it off, seeing Braylon, Dante and Desmond getting on the floor. "What happened?"
"We were playing the games," Braylon answered, pulling out money from his pocket. "We made bets and I won all the games."
"I don't even care." Dante confirmed. "If y'all could choose between Tatiana or Bianca, who would y'all choose?"
"I'm not in that." I skated away from them.
"Me either." I heard Lamont state.
I moved over to Constance as she was speaking to Dahlia and I touched her hand, as she turned to look at me.
"You can go Constance." Dahlia grinned as Lamont tried pulling her arm to get her on the floor yet she pulled away. "No, I'm not getting on the floor Monty."
I held hands with Constance, hearing This Is How We Do It by Montell Jordan and Wino which made me smoothly skate backwards, feeling the beat of the song.
"How do you skate backwards? It looks so much fun!" Constance's eyes widened at the sight of me skating backwards. "I want to learn but I could hardly skate forwards."
"It took a lot of practice baby girl."
She shook her head. "Well I'll continue this forwards thing."
I stared at her for a minute before taking her arms and we continued skating together. I looked over my shoulder seeing Braylon and Dante hitting a routine to the song that was playing throughout the rink.
Hollywood Swingin'
They danced smoothly in their skates, going backwards and forwards as if they were on the movie roll bounce and had everyone staring at them.
"How do they have so much balance on skates?" Constance sounded so amazed.
"Practice baby girl," I winked making her playfully roll her eyes. "You want to get something to eat or continue on the floor?"
"I'm feening for wings." Her eyes wandered off to the food. "Let's go!"
I helped her off of the floor, getting on the carpet as we moved to the food.
We noticed Tatiana, Bianca sitting and Raquel at the other table eating food alongside Sienna.
"Hey, why aren't y'all skating?" Constance questioned the girls.
"I'm scared of falling.." Bianca quickly answered. "And I already know that none of the guys will help me, so I'm staying right here."
"I'm just not comfortable," Tatiana sighed, brushing her ponytail back. "I don't have balance whatsoever and I can't risk falling on my knees or my beautiful face."
Raquel grinned, "I'm eating right now but do y'all see Braylon 'nem? They got their little dance routine going on, I'm going to learn it!"
"Yeah, they real smooth."
"It does look so fun, I've skated years ago so it's kind of hard to get back into it." Constance added.
"You alright Sienna?"
She looked up, her eyes holding a bunch of signs reading pain, hurt, help confusion and hate emotions that scared me because I just realized it. She was fighting and going through something that was deeper than what I thought. After all of those years of knowing her, I couldn't believe that I didn't pick on it. She was masking her pain, it was scary.
I hoped the end result was her being able to speak, not staying silent and letting out all of the emotions that desperately needed to come out.
"Could be better, but thank you for asking Darius." She forced a smile, yet her eyes still screamed all of the above.
It made me feel guilty, and mad at myself for not picking it up sooner as I got the feeling of wanting to tell her it'll be okay but I didn't know how to get her to talk to me which is why I was happy that she spoke to Constance.
Constance gave me a cheesy grin, as I followed her to the counter. Although the camp leaders were buying the food, I decided to get something for my girl and I.
"You want just wings or something else?"
She leaned her arm over the counter, tapping her chin. "Wings, and a strawberry lemonade would be fine.. what are you getting?"
"The same." I waited for the cashier to walk up to us. "You can talk to your friends, I'll bring the food to you."
"Thanks Darybear." She kissed my cheek, and went to join her friends at the table.
I can't wait to marry that girl.